Sisters and Brothers
by the laughing hermit
Summary: Don and Charlie find out that they have a sister. Their lives after the fact
1. Alert!

I don't own Numb3rs. Please be gentle, seeing as this is my first Numb3rs fic.

Don was at his desk, sipping coffee when it came. There was a loud pining noise coming from his computer. He frowned and turned the monitor on to see ALERT! in bold letters across the screen. Then there was a face. It was a young woman, late twenties, maybe early thirties staring back. She was so thin, she was almost skeletal, with skin that hadn't seen the sun in years. Her black hair was a knotted frazzle, but her eyes shone with desperation.

"Please," she whispered hoarsely. "Please, I don't know if you're even going to get this message, but there's a problem. Myself and about twenty children are being held here. I'm forced to hack banks, and there used for…things. I hope you understand. I don't know where we are, save the lat and long triangulation. I've attached them. Please, please, come get them. I'll probably be dead for sending this, but you can still save them. Hurry!"

She looked over her shoulder, and the screen switched off abruptly.

"All right guys. We need to assemble a team, now! Someone get Charlie to check the coordinates. Now people! We have a twenty-one people on the line here!" Don said getting out of his chair and pulling on a bullet-proof vest.

Soon, the SWAT teams were assembled, the officers suited up, and Charlie had verified the coordinates, and given him a name. They ran full tilt into the room, where there was film equipment and about ten small children lined up.

"Freeze! Hands up! Down on the ground!" the calls echoed from every corner of the spacious warehouse. One jumped up, screaming profanities and ran down a hallway.

Don and Megan followed him. They yelled for him to stop, but he kept running. They even tried to fire shots, but he kept moving. He abruptly hurtled into a darkened room. They heard him yelling in a high-pitched voice-

"You bitch! You've ruined us. I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

As they ran in the room Don jumped on the guy and hauled him down. Megan went to check the status of the person who was being threatened. It was the girl who had contacted them.

"Come on honey," Megan cooed, trying to calm her, "You need to get up."

"I can't." the woman said in a rational voice. "As you can see," she gestured to the manacles that held her wrists to the keyboard, "I'm a little tied up. There's a blow torch out with the kids though. They liked to scare them." She got a far-off look in her eyes.

Meanwhile, Don had managed to cuff the man, and take him away. He came back with a pair of wire cutters, and snipped to chains that held the cuffs down. She lifted her hands and stared at them as if they were a new part of her body she had just discovered.

"What's your name?" Don asked as he pulled her up onto her stilt-thin legs.

"They called me Hacker. But I have another name. I just found it. My name is Eileen." She said smiling. It wasn't a happy smile, but something else Don couldn't put his finger on. This girl made him shiver.

All of the kids had been taken to a SWAT can for transport to the station. She climbed in with them, and they all huddled around her like frightened rabbits. She pet their hair, and assured them that everything would be all right.

They got to the station, where they met Charlie and Amita. Don took Eileen into one of the interrogation rooms to try and figure out what was going on.

"You say your name is Eileen." He said, pacing, with a file folder in his hand.

"Yes. Eileen." She said as if testing the name out on her tongue.

"And you say that you didn't know your name before? How is that possible?"

"I was taken from the hospital while I was still an infant. They gave us numbers." She said, leaning her forehead on her palms. "How was I supposed to know my name?" she asked looking up.

"Is that what happened to every kid?" Don asked, walking to the end of the table, across from her.

"Yes." She said, her eyes still following him pacing

"How do you know your name?" he asked, leaning forward.

"I hacked the FBI database and matched it to my birthday and kidnappings from the hospitals in the area. I found my name. And my family." She said, staring at a point beyond Don.

"Wait." Don said, holding up his hand. "You were able to hack the FBI database?"

"Of course. Everything is numbers. You just need to know which to use."

"This family of yours, how do we contact them?"

She started squirming. She sighed and looked around the room, hesitated.

"I don't think that they want me." She whispered finally, not meeting his eyes.

"Why wouldn't they want you?" he said, sitting down next to her.

"They're not being very friendly." She said, still not meeting his eyes.

"Wait. There here? In this building?"

"In this room. My name is Eileen Epps. I have a twin brother named Charles. I looked the two of you up on the internet. He's really smart, and you're really brave. I'm nothing." She finished, with tears streaming down her face. Don hugged her, and heard a banging noise outside the window/mirror.

"That was Charles, wasn't it?"

"I think so. Let me go talk to him." Don said, getting up.

"Take your time. I don't have anywhere to go."

When Don got out to the hall, Charlie was on the phone.

"Hi Dad. Listen, when were you going to tell us that we had a sister?" there was a pause, "All right. I'll wait at the station. See you in a few." Charlie looked up at Don. "He's coming down to explain the situation. I can't believe this. I have a twin?"

**This is where it's ending for now, folks. ****Come back soon for the exciting continuation!**


	2. Welcome Home

Alan Epps walked in the room to find his two sons standing at the one-way mirror, watching his daughter.

"Boys," he said, but found that he couldn't continue.

They turned and looked at him. Don's eyes were carefully blank, but Charlie's eyes were full of emotion, confusion, hurt, and mistrust.

"Boys, it's hard to explain. Please sit. Sit, sit, sit, please?" they both sat down. Don sat with his back straight, and his legs crossed at the knees. He was waiting. Charlie looked sad, and hunched over.

"Your sister was abducted while she and Charlie were still in the hospital. She was taken from the bassinet. Charlie was too young to remember, and Don, we had wanted to surprise you with two siblings." He gave a sad laugh. "Silly, I know. We contacted the police-"

"That's why you guys were so stressed after Charlie was born." Don said with understanding.

"Yeah, that's why. They couldn't get any leads. We didn't want to worry you. How were we supposed to tell you? We didn't know. We waited and we hoped, but the police told us that she was as good as dead because we were so young. We took their advice: we didn't tell you. I regret it. We did the best we could, your mother and I. I know it isn't enough, but we never stopped looking."

He stopped talking. He looked at his son.

"Is her name really Eileen?" Charlie asked, looking up for the first time during the conversation.

"Yeah."

"And she's really my twin sister?"

"Yeah."

Charlie got up abruptly and walked into the interrogation room. He sat down, and started talking to Eileen.

"Hi, Eileen." Charlie said awkwardly

"Hi Charles." She said, looking towards him, embarrassed.

"It's Charlie." He said gently correcting her.

"Charlie." She agreed.

"What happened?" it was a simple question without a simple answer. Not even numbers could answer this question.

"I don't know. She said simply. A simple answer for a simple question.

"Do you have any interests?" Charlie asked, fishing for topics. He didn't want to stop talking to her. He was afraid that she would disappear.

"All I do is hack. All I do is numbers. I suppose that they're an interest." She said shrugging.

On the other side of the glass wall, Amita came.

"What's going on guys?" she asked, looking through the window. She saw Charlie, he boyfriend, bending over a sheet of loose-leaf paper, with a girl, obviously teaching her. She was a little jealous.

"Charlie," Alan said in a flat voice, "is reconnecting with his twin sister."

Amita looked at him, startled. She looked back in the room and realized that they did look alike. She began listening to their conversation through the intercom.

"What made you contact the FBI?" Charlie asked, as he wrote out problems for her to try. He passed the problems to her, along with a pencil.

"I saw a list of graduates from the Academy. I saw Don's name. He was in a bureau close by. I hacked it." She shrugged and began working on the problem with little difficulty.

Charlie began to check over her answers, and asked

"What was the catalyst? You were there that long. Why now?" he said, looking up from the sheet.

"They were going to clean house." She said, not looking at him

"Clean house?" he asked with some urgency

'They either sell the kids, or they kill them. I survived a house cleaning. My friend, pushed me into a closet, and threw himself in front of it. They didn't care that I lived. I just moved to a new department: computers and banks."

She went back to the new problems that Charlie had written out. Charlie threw his arms around her in an engulfing hug. She flinched, hesitated, then allowed herself to be embraced.

"I'm sorry." Charlie said simply. She had tears in her eyes. "Do you want to come stay at my house?" he asked hopefully.

"Okay," she said nodding.

He helped her up, walked her out of the room, and to where the family was waiting.

"This is Amita, my girlfriend." He said, gesturing towards her. She waved shyly, and offered a hug. Eileen backed away slightly, but then accepted the younger girl's hug.

"You've already met Don, our older brother." He also hugged Eileen. It was a brotherly hug, full of affection.

"And this, is our dad, Alan."

"Hi baby girl." He said, pulling her into a bone-crushing hug. She didn't mind, she simply hugged back.

"Mom?"

"Your mother is dead." Alan said. "Cancer."

The girl nodded, as if this was a logical conclusion. She turned to Charlie and held out her arms for a hug, which he gladly accepted.

"I had hugged everyone else," she whispered, "Except my twin."

"How long have you known?" he asked on their way out of the FBI headquarters.

"Since I was fifteen." She said softly. She had a quiet voice, one that never rose in anger or distress, like their mother had had.

"I have to stay here and finish up with this raid. I'll be by for dinner." Don said, turning around.

"We'll keep something warm for you. Take your time." Charlie said turning around to leave

"Call if you need anything." Added Alan.

"I will." Don promised.

They all piled into Alan's car, Don had given Charlie a ride to the station earlier, and went home. They pulled up in front of the Craftsman and Charlie put his arm around his sister and said-

"Welcome home, sis."

She smiled slowly, which incited everyone else to smile. The house felt like home again.

**AWW, SAPPY, HAPPY FLUFF. IT GETS BETTER THOUGH. I PROMISE.**


End file.
